


Lost and Found and Show and Tell

by NervousAsexual



Category: Half-Life
Genre: Baby Alyx, Pre-Canon, Well - Freeform, losing a parent, not that much baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28207968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: Alyx has never been to school but that's not going to stop her from teaching D0G. It's just that the things she wants to teach him are... complicated.
Relationships: Alyx Vance & Azian Vance, Alyx Vance & D0G
Kudos: 11





	Lost and Found and Show and Tell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SupportTheVort](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=SupportTheVort).



Alyx had never actually been to school, but she knew what school was. She'd read books. Her dad had explained the idea of meeting with a teacher who not only knew a lot of things but was good at explaining them. Uncle Izzie had told her about the endless days and nights that bled together in an unending void of numbers and equations while your health and sanity was meted out in exchange for poorly paid fellowship opportunities and a future filled with ramen. Uncle Barney had taught her to play an old playground game called "Four Square."

So it wasn't for lack of knowledge that Alyx School sputtered out after only a few days. Mostly it was the fact that D0G couldn't hold a pencil or turn the pages of a book or even pretend to care about what was going on; since D0G was the only student, that fact did put a damper on things. Still, there were fun things that happened at school, her dad pointed out. Sometimes there were assemblies or book fairs or field trips. Those were a little easier to do. On the day she turned eight Uncle Barney and a bunch of his friends brought her a big cardboard box stuffed with books, and she set them out on every flat surface in her dad's room and brought D0G and Dad and every uncle and aunt she could find in to look over the books and pick out one to take home.

"This isn't really what I had in mind," Uncle Barney had said when she put a copy of _The Secret of Platform 13_ into his hand and tried her hardest to push him out the door.

Field trip day was a bust. First she tried to take D0G to visit Ravenholm, but the aunt who was guarding the tunnel to Ravenholm asked to see their permission slips and Alyx hadn't even thought to sign a permission slip for D0G. She went back and scribbled her name on a piece of paper and showed it to Aunt Lydia, who then asked to see permissions from the principal because what if D0G got hurt in Ravenholm? And that was when Alyx lost interest and went back to the labs to help with her dad's latest project.

Assembly day she hadn't planned out far enough ahead and the day before she drooped into the lab to make her shame known to Dad and the aunts and uncles.

"Maybe," Uncle Izzie said, not unkindly, "you could put off the assembly for another day?"

But she'd promised D0G an assembly. If she made him go back to pretending to practice math problems when he was expecting a presentation on "Headcrabs and You" complete with anatomical demonstrations he would probably be upset.

"You could just draw a picture of a headcrab and teach him that way."

But she didn't want to draw a picture, she admitted. What she really wanted was a pet headcrab that would snuggle with her when she was sad. D0G did his best but he just wasn't a good snuggler.

"A pet headcrab," Uncle Izzie echoed. "Hmm..."

And then he wandered off muttering something about debeaking.

So she couldn't do the headcrab assembly. What else could she do an assembly on?

"Instead of an assembly, why not do show and tell?" Dad asked her. "I bet if you ask him D0G has lots of things he would want to bring in."

That sounded fun. She explained things to D0G and while he went off looking for something to show if not tell she thought about what she should bring. Her pickled chumtoad? No, D0G had seen it before, since it lived on her nightstand. The old HEV charger she'd found in the back of the scrap heap? There wasn't much to tell about that. _The Secret of Platform 13_ , which was her newest favorite book? But she'd already read him that book for library day. So she went back to her room and carefully looked over everything she owned, searching for the perfect show and tell thing.

"What did you bring?" she asked D0G.

D0G made an excited whine and dropped a disabled roller mine on the floor of the office that was their classroom. He bounced up and down.

"Oh, wow," Alyx said. "That's really cool. Thanks for sharing that, D0G."

D0G made a noise that meant he was pleased with himself. Alyx couldn't bring herself to tell him that she'd already seen roller mines lots of times before and in fact had played catch with him and this very roller mine yesterday.

"I brought something really special," she told him. She unzipped her sweatshirt and pulled out the picture frame she'd hidden inside it. "Look at this. This is me and Dad and my mom." She pointed out each of them in turn as D0G made a series of curious noises and examined the photo closely. "This was before there were headcrabs and the Combine and stuff. Before my mom died."

D0G made a very sad whistle.

"It's okay. I don't really remember her." Alyx turned the picture over and looked down at the smiling woman who leaned against her dad. "Dad says she was really nice and knew everything about everything. He says I have her eyes." She squinted at the picture, trying for the hundredth time to see what he meant by that, but the picture was so beat-up and the details weren't great and all she saw were two eyes exactly like every other eye and shoulder length black hair that looked a little like her hair but also looked a little like every other black-haired person she'd ever met. "I don't even miss her, or at least I don't think I do. I don't like not having a mom like people in books, but I don't remember her, so how can I miss her?" She touched her fingertip to the picture and pretend as she sometimes did that one of these days she was going to try and touch the picture but her hand would go right through into the day the picture was taken, and she'd grab her mom by the hand and pull her out of the picture and her mom would be so amazed and confused but so happy to see her, and then...

And then what?

Maybe she'd give Alyx a hug, or maybe she wouldn't know who Alyx was at all. The last time she'd seen her Alyx was only two years old, and even with the not-great picture she could tell she'd changed a lot since then.

"He says she loved me," she told D0G. "And I loved her. I wish she were around so I could remember what that feels like."

A bit of water dripped onto her mother's face, blurring it even more. She was crying, Alyx realized, and quickly scrubbed at her face with her sleeve.

"I'm okay," she said to D0G. "I gotta put this back, though. If Dad sees it's gone he'll be upset."

She wiped the water off her mom's face and, still looking hard for something familiar, carried the picture back to her dad's lab. It didn't seem fair that she'd only gotten to know the sad parts about her mom, the parts about her being great but not being here anymore. She knew from books that moms could be annoying or grumpy or upset just the way dads were, but at least that was something. It was better than what Alyx had, which was nothing. Anything was better than that.

D0G headbutted her shoulder gently, and she turned around and put her arms around his neck and laid her head against his. He scooped her up with one arm and the roller mine with the other. "It's okay," he seemed to be saying. "Even if you're sad I still love you."

She loved him too. She closed her eyes and listened to the complicated machines that made him move and think and love and she loved him too. "Thanks, D0G. You're the best student I ever had."

D0G made a contented humming noise and sat down on the floor. He took the roller mine and tossed it against the wall. It bounced back. He caught it. He tossed it. It bounced back. And Alyx caught it.

She tossed it. It bounced back. He caught it. Over and over again, until she felt better.

He wasn't a very good student, but D0G was pretty great at recess.


End file.
